Revenge is sweet for Portico

The U13’s travelled to Portico on Sunday in a league match and produced a mixed performance against a team who was out for revenge after the Rhinos recently put them out of the cup.

Matches against Portico are always tough and the Rhinos got off to a terrible start as the home side raced in to a ten point lead within 10 minutes.

The Rhinos’ defence was sluggish and in attack too many sloppy passes resulted in Portico having the lion’s share of the first 15 minutes. Credit to the Rhinos they rolled up their sleeves and got stuck in.

This resulted in Chris Wareing scoring 3 tries, one of which was converted by Sam Murphy to lead 10-14 at half time.

Despite being told by the coaches to concentrate and tighten their defence because they knew that Portico would come out all guns blazing in the second half. The Rhinos did the complete opposite and allowed the home side to score 2 quick tries and 1 conversion to lead 20-14, but again the Rhinos came back and a fantastic move was finished off by Captain and Man of the Match Liam Byrne which was converted by Sam Murphy to tie the game up at 20-20.

Liam Ashurst, Allen Standen, Jack and Tom Callaghan all tried their best and Harrison Tyrell and Louis Royle were tremendous in their tackling. The last 10 minutes of the match was tough for the Rhinos because the home side sensing a victory went for it and kept the ball alive which the Rhinos tried valiantly to contain but, in the end conceded 2 converted tries to lose the match 32-20. Make no mistake the Rhinos should and could have won this one but it was not to be and now they have to regroup, put the effort in at training ready for the next game.